Bartendro, the Party Robotics bartender from KickStarter, will soon be available to the public.
(Bartendro robot bartender video)
The Bartendro robot, by Party Robotics, uses peristaltic pumps (normally used for pumping human blood or medicine) to dispense precise amounts of alcohol and mixers into drinks. You can check out a drink menu on your smartphone and pick anything from White Russians to Kamikaze shots.
"We did it!" social media marketing expert Erin Berman wrote in Party Robotics' blog April 4. "At 8pm we pressed the pour button on ShotBot and took a celebratory swig of whiskey."
For now, Party Robotics is working on making Bartendro available. It will come with various numbers of dispensers for shots — one, three, seven or 15. More dispensers allow for more drink variety.
Fans of sf writer Harry Harrison may recall the robot bar from his 1965 story Bill The Galactic Hero, long before R2D2 served snacks on Jabba the Hutt's pleasure barge. Even earlier is the robot bartender from Alfred Bester's 1956 classic The Stars My Destination.
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'What strange sensitivity! What an amazing development of science was manifested in every move and act and word of this Robot!' - Ray Cummings, 1931.
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